Cold Case Closed: The 1974 Stasi Border Shooting

A former East German Stasi officer, Martin Manfred N, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for the 1974 murder of Polish firefighter Czeslaw Kukuczka at a Berlin border crossing. Kukuczka was shot in the back and died at a Stasi hospital. The judgment can be appealed.

A former Stasi officer in East Germany has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for the murder of a Polish firefighter at a Berlin border crossing in 1974. The Berlin court's decision comes half a century after the killing of 38-year-old Czeslaw Kukuczka.

Martin Manfred N, whose last name was kept private due to privacy laws, was found guilty of shooting Kukuczka in the back at the Friedrichstrasse crossing, known as the 'Palace of Tears.' Kukuczka had attempted to force Polish embassy officials to allow him passage to the West with a fake explosive device.

The court revealed that instead of being rushed to a nearby hospital, Kukuczka was taken to a Stasi prison hospital and died there. Evidence from a reconstructed 2016 document was pivotal in the case, showing Manfred N had been awarded for stopping what was deemed a border provocation. His defense argued there was no conclusive evidence he was the shooter or that the act qualified as murder.

(With inputs from agencies.)